NEW YORK—To maintain its high-end luxury standards and global presence, Kempinski Hotels is focusing its efforts on innovation, talent and food-driven components, while pursuing opportunities in Europe, Asia and Africa, said the company’s CEO and President Reto Wittwer on Tuesday during an event in New York.
The 116-year-old brand had its best year in 2012 and is on track to do even better this year, Wittwer said, which is due in no small part to Kempinski’s global reputation.
Kempinski is a luxury brand in the same vein as Hermes, he said. “A Hermes tie is 34% more expensive than an Armani tie and although they have the same silk and are the same size that is the kind of premium we want to deliver to our owners.”
That premium is driven by Kempinski innovations like the Lady in Red. Now a brand standard, The Lady in Red staffer, dressed in “Valentino Red,” is the go-to person for any guest needs. “The Lady in Red in each hotel has the same power as the general manager,” he said.
Wittwer said the “luxury agenda is being rewritten around the world with a focus now on food and beverage, and the guest experience,” and he intends Kempinski to be on the forefront of these changes.
“Ten years ago, Hilton was considered a luxury brand, but my job is to ensure that (Kempinski is) a leading luxury brand 10 years from now,” he said.
“We have several ways to attain that goal,” he said. “One is innovation. Each hotel has an innovation committee and is expected to constantly reinvent itself.”
Talent is also important. Kempinski pays its GMs to attain their master’s of business administration, and Wittwer said he spends “50% of my time with young people to ensure an ongoing pool of talent, and we believe that it is the general manager’s job to select talent, not human resources.
|
|
Reto Wittwer Kempinski Hotels |
The third way to attain Kempinski’s long-term goals is to focus on F&B. When guests arrive at the hotel, the first thing they do isn’t ask where there room is but where to find food and drink, he said.
“If the F&B at a hotel is not good, then the hotel will not be integrated into the community, which is crucial,” Wittwer said. “In fact, we now consider ourselves a food-driven company.”
Global goals
The plan to keep Kempinski an exclusive company means ensuring the number of hotels never exceeds the age of the company, Wittwer said. Currently, the company has 80 hotels in 30 countries.
However, Kempinski is growing with new hotels in Moscow and Shanghai, with openings to follow in: Nairobi; Accra, Ghana; Taiyuan, China; and Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia. Wittwer said that Kempinski sees development opportunities in Asia and, in particular, Africa.
Even though Kempinski lacks a North American presence, Wittwer doesn’t plan to change that anytime soon.
For a luxury brand to “be credible” in the U.S., it would need properties in eight gateway cities “with a uniform type of hotel,” he said during an interview with HotelNewsNow.com. “We are all about individuality when it comes to our hotels and that makes this kind of growth difficult.”
Although Wittwer is not currently looking to open any hotels in the U.S., he did say the company would be open to opportunities in New York because it is “the capital of the world” and Los Angeles because it is the gateway to the Pacific.
While Kempinski capped its growth in China, the company agreed to introduce another brand, Nuo, in the market with its joint-venture partner. The first two Nuo hotels will open in Beijing in 2015 with another soon after in Shanghai. Those hotels will be at the “top of the market,” said Wittwer, but “much more Asian in style than Kempinski.”
Wittwer also said the company has high expectations for Africa, especially as the world’s focus shifts to areas like the continent, which has an abundance of raw materials including old, gas and water.